Scale Like a CEO

Transforming Home Renovations with AI: A Conversation with Julie Kheyfets, CEO of Block Renovation

• Justin Reinert • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Julie Kheyfets, CEO of Block Renovation, takes us on a journey through the challenges and opportunities in the home renovation industry. Unlike traditional lead-generation platforms that simply connect homeowners with contractors, Block has created a specialized AI marketplace focused exclusively on major renovation projects where trust is the fundamental issue at stake. Julie explains how their approach helps both homeowners who feel vulnerable during renovations and contractors who struggle to manage multiple aspects of their small businesses.

The conversation shifts to growth strategies, with Julie sharing invaluable insights about thoughtful hiring practices. She emphasizes creating meaningful roles that contribute to the company's mission rather than simply offloading tasks or creating positions for specific individuals. When evaluating potential team members, Julie places immense value on curiosity - what she calls "epistemic intellectual humility" - the awareness that one's instincts are merely data points rather than definitive answers. This quality drives people to ask questions, seek evidence, and continuously learn rather than relying solely on assumptions.

We also explore the art of delegation, a crucial skill for leaders of scaling businesses. Julie highlights that effective delegation isn't simply about assigning tasks but rather about setting clear parameters, establishing goals, and empowering team members to achieve outcomes in their own way. Her advice to focus on outcomes rather than methodologies acknowledges that multiple paths can lead to success. Looking forward, Block Renovation continues to expand into new markets while developing innovative AI tools to help homeowners navigate the complex decision-making process of renovations - making the entire experience less overwhelming and more confidence-inspiring for everyone involved.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Scale Like a CEO, the podcast where we dive deep into the strategies and stories behind business growth. Today, we're joined by Julie Kayfetz, CEO of Block Renovation, to explore how she's transforming the home renovation industry and building high-performing teams. Let's get started.

Justin:

Julie, thank you so much for joining me on Scale Like a CEO. Just to get us started, give us a 90-second intro to you and your business get like a CEO.

Julie:

Just to get us started, give us a 90 second intro to you and your business. Justin, thank you for having me Excited to be here. My name is Julie Kheyfets. I'm the CEO of Block Renovation and we are building the most trusted place to plan and hire for major renovations. So if you think about home renovations, it's a complex space and a lot of folks both homeowners and contractors have a really challenging experience for many reasons, and we're overcoming a lot of those challenges by building an AI marketplace with phenomenal contractors to enable homeowners to build spaces that they love.

Justin:

That's amazing and much needed. Talking about renovations, I'm almost triggered renovations. I'm almost triggered, Having dealt with contractors and builders, that if you've dealt with a contractor or builder you know the challenge. So if you are making that world better, I am very appreciative.

Julie:

Yeah, it's tough for homeowners. You are inviting a stranger into your home to knock down some walls and turn it into a construction site and then you're kind of at their mercy a little bit. It's also hard for contractors. Contractors are small businesses. They're juggling so many things at once. They're trying to manage projects and sell business and manage crews and make payroll. So there are a lot of challenges across the board for sure.

Justin:

Yeah, so what would you say makes you, your business, unique in the way that you help your people, your clients?

Julie:

Yeah. So for us, if you think about the history of companies in the space, first off, there are no massive companies in the renovation space. The folks doing the work are often mom and pop contractors. Maybe they have a couple of locations in a region, but they're very small. So there have been a couple of technology companies that have tried to build platforms in the space before and primarily they worked on a lead model. So if you think about a company like Angie's List or Thumbtack, they have homeowners who are looking for contractors and they enter in their email, their phone number, and that information is sold on a lead basis to a contractor and then it's up to the contractor to go and meet that homeowner, try to sell the job, deliver on the job. The platforms just help demand supply to discover each other, and they do that across a pretty broad range of categories.

Julie:

You can hire contractors for your renovation. You can hire folks to mow your lawn. You can hire tutors for your kids. You can hire dog walkers. They really went after a really massive market. And for us, what's very different is that we specialize in the world of renovations in particular. So we're not doing small jobs, we're not doing lawn mowing and dog walking. We're really focused on big projects that are complex and where there are real issues of trust, and trust is the core issue that we are solving in the industry.

Justin:

Yeah, that's a great thing to be tackling. I appreciate that. Well, I'd love to pivot and talk a little bit about growing the business. I know you've had your hands in multiple businesses and scaling those businesses and you've been with Block for a few years now in helping Block Renovation continue to scale. So I'd love to talk a little bit about what are some of the challenges that you faced as you continue to add people to the team and grow.

Julie:

Yeah, that's a good question. There's always a question of when do you add people to the team? At what point do you open up a role? Do you go to the market? Do you hire a team member?

Julie:

I think about that in a couple of ways. One is what is the work to be done, what actually needs to be done, and does that work amount to an interesting, engaging, challenging role for people? When folks come to me let's say leaders or managers and they say I have all these tasks that are really annoying, I just want somebody to do them. Well, doing a bunch of tasks that annoy you, that's not a good value proposition for employees. So is there a real need for a real role that somebody can grow in and learn from and build their career around? That's one thing. Another thing is kind of how do we shape that role? What's the right level for the role? Where should the role be in the organization? Is that role in person? Is that role remote? And that all depends on what's the work to be done and who will be most successful in doing that work.

Justin:

Yeah, yeah, it's. It comes up often in what is it? How do you know when to hire and how many people to hire? And I really liked that you call out the the need to effectively scope the role of what. What actually do you need to hire? Because I've I've worked with some founders and small scaling businesses where, from one perspective, they'll have the hey, I have this person that I want to hire, and here's some things that they could do.

Justin:

And I'm like well, is that a job, though? Like is that a job that you need? Forget about the person for a second and like is there actually a job here or what is the job? And if there's a job, is that actually the best person for this job?

Julie:

Right yeah.

Justin:

And then there's that other perspective of, like you said, I've got all these tasks, but are those tasks really a job? How do you drive those conversations in the organization then, and kind of work with your leaders and your folks to help them effectively scope those roles so that you're hiring smartly?

Julie:

Yeah yeah. The example you cite of I've got this great person. What if they do this for us? That's such an interesting example of what I think companies typically should avoid doing, which is creating roles for people versus starting with the work. Both that and the example of here are some tasks. Just get them off my plate.

Julie:

Those are things that just don't position employees for success and ultimately, if we have to have the hard conversation with the people manager of is this a real job? Do we want to hire for it? We start with what would actually make somebody successful in this role and what makes sense for the team. And sure, you can bring on a person and create a role for them and they'll be kind of interested for the first six months because it's novel. But if it's not something the company actually needs, they won't be challenged and they're going to feel that their work is not mission critical because we kind of made it up to just bring them on board. Ultimately, it doesn't position the employee for success and the types of roles that I think are really appealing to high-performing team members are those that do deliver impact, that give people autonomy to drive that impact and that empower them with what they need to drive that impact.

Justin:

Yeah, I love that you are thinking that intentionally about the people that you're bringing on, because too often you know, we just kind of like find the first person that's available or we create the job for the person that we want to hire, and that's just not a good formula for success. So I'm curious, I'd love to dig in a little bit more, like what are some of the key qualities that you're looking for when you're bringing people on either a block renovation or if you have any that are, in general, like you've just always looked for?

Julie:

Yeah, of course there's some variants by role role but if I think about the things that are universal, probably one of the biggest ones is curiosity. When I say curiosity, what I mean is having the epistemic intellectual humility to know that your instincts are a data point but they're not the final answer and it's coming to the table with questions and then really prioritizing, getting signal on those questions. I once heard a really great product leader say that if you're a product manager, for example, the first idea that you have is likely to be the most obvious one. It is unlikely to be the most valuable one for users. And the way to figure out what's most valuable is to actually go and talk to those users and to then run experiments and put prototypes in front of them and launch MVPs and see what people engage with and find value in. And, as I think about hiring anywhere in our organization, bringing that curiosity and open-mindedness and just hunger to learn and get signal, that's probably the biggest thing.

Justin:

I love that. That's something that I screen for a lot really curiosity and growth mindset and it's something that I think is so necessary, especially as we integrate AI into our work more. So just yesterday I was doing more research. I've done a few speaking engagements and written on the topic of the need for critical thinking in this age of AI topic of the need for critical thinking in this age of AI and I think that curiosity is and now I want to kind of fold it in there like curiosity begs critical thinking right.

Julie:

Absolutely yeah. I mean, if you're really curious and you go out and you look for signal and data and you're looking to learn, that signal and that data will come in all shapes and sizes and you will need to think critically about is this an important data point? How heavily do I weight this? Do I go and investigate this further? Is this a fluke? That requires a really strong critical thinking toolkit.

Justin:

For sure, for sure. I love that you're asking around curiosity. So now, as you navigate in the businesses that you're running as you grow, you've got to kind of sometimes let go of things and delegate down in the organization. I'd love to hear just about any challenges you've faced with that, or if you have a formula that other people could learn from.

Julie:

Yes, this is such a great question for people who are scaling companies, because sometimes the people who either start companies or join companies early are really great at doing and they might not be so good at managing or figuring out what to delegate. And I think there are a couple of sides to this. One is as a leader of people. Sides to this. One is as a leader of people. I think your number one job is to recruit a team and to empower them to do the best work of their careers in the service of what you're trying to do for your users Any company. You're trying to build a product that delivers extraordinary value to users and you're trying to figure out how to distribute that product. You probably can't do that as a single person. That's going to take a lot of time, and so it's on you to figure out how do I gather the right people to help me do that, but then how do I also empower them to do that as quickly and as effectively as possible? Now there's definitely the question of how do you delegate that work.

Julie:

I think part of it is making sure you set up people with the right vision and direction and the right parameters, for what are we trying to achieve? Like, let's say, we're kicking off a project or an initiative. What are the big goals? What are the big questions? Who's working on this? How are we working on it together? How do we want to have that collaboration? How often do we want to talk about it? Who is doing the investigation? Who's sharing things out? That piece, that setup, is critical for a leader to do. That's something I've had to learn. My instinct is to say well, we have this question. Let's just dive in and start looking at data and talking to users. Let's just go but that investment upfront and really setting up that project for success and the team for success that pays so many dividends in making sure they can run effectively.

Justin:

Yeah, and that's it's challenging. I'm thinking, even recently, of just some stuff that I've been delegating to virtual assistants, that, like, I know in my head what I need done and you know, inevitably I'm going to miss a couple of those steps and my first reaction when it's not done right the first time then is like, well, this is never going to work. I'm the only person who can do this. But then it's amazing, when you have a little patience, go back, fill in the brief a bit more, recognize the steps that you missed and you're like, oh wow, actually they're doing all right at that thing that you know now I can offload this bit of work. So I do like this the idea of it's all in the brief and the setup and making sure that you're giving people the right instructions or the right path or guidance to do it successfully.

Julie:

Yeah, and it takes some humility and it takes acknowledging that there are often multiple ways to do things and it sounds easy to say, but if you have a vision of how you would do it, it can be hard to actually abstract away from that and to believe truly that there are multiple ways to do it. So if your virtual assistants come back and they've done things a different way, if they get to the outcome that you said would be success, then they've done things a different way. If they get to the outcome that you said would be success, then they've unlocked success, even if you would have done it differently.

Justin:

Yeah, that's something I've coached leaders on so much in my career of developing leaders is forget about the how, let go of the how, focus on the outcome, focus on the objective, and if somebody can figure out how to get there in a way that's different from how you would do it, it doesn't matter.

Justin:

I mean, as long as they're not breaking other things or breaking the law or but like, let them figure it out and empower them, empower them to do it successfully. It makes me think of and I don't know I know that this has been challenged as far as the attribution to Steve Jobs, but the quote of I don't hire smart people and tell them what to do. I hire smart people and let them tell me what to do.

Julie:

Yeah, totally that resonates.

Justin:

So what does the future look like at Block Renovation?

Julie:

does the future look like at Block Renovation? Yeah, the future is exciting for sure. So we're doing a couple of things. One is we're growing, so we continue to open up new markets where we offer our AI marketplace. The other is we are building more and more tools for homeowners who maybe aren't ready to renovate yet, but are planning what they will do with their space.

Julie:

You know, so much of the journey of renovating is trying to figure out. Do I start with my bath or my kitchen? Okay, I'll do my kitchen. What do I want to do to it? Do I want to change out the cabinets? Do I want to do the flooring? Do I want to add an island? Do I want to change the countertops? As homeowners kind of get deeper and deeper in the process, they figure out that they need to make hundreds of decisions and it is completely overwhelming. It sounds like you might have some experience with this wonderful, wonderful journey of remodeling. You know folks just get overwhelmed and they get stuck. And using AI, we're building tools that help them to make progress at their own pace, one step at a time, but also give them the guidance to do that in a way where they can feel confident in making those decisions that's great.

Justin:

I have to check out the platform because we have some work we need to get done, so you know, but see if it can be helpful. It's just, it's a small project, but we're already the first couple of avenues we tried. They don't want to do it because it's it's a rooftop door and people don't want to insert dolls on doors on rooftops for some reason, I don't know.

Julie:

I'm sure there are many questions about doors on rooftops.

Justin:

Yes, yes, but yeah, well, you know, julie, I really appreciated our conversation today. Thank you so much for joining me. If people want to reach out, what's the best way to get in contact with you?

Julie:

Yeah, so I'd encourage everybody to check us out at blockrenovationcom and individually. Folks can find me on LinkedIn.

Justin:

Great Well, thank you so much, Julie.

Julie:

Thanks so much, Justin. Appreciate it.